WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 251 



Keryfan, affecting to hide the keen disappointment he felt at being 

 shut out of a run that bid fair to be the one of the season. 



" Killing a three-legged wolf may be of service to the com- 

 munity, Keryfan ; but it has been sorry sport for ourselves, I 

 confess," said the Louvetier. " Our friend Frank, too, knows so 

 well what a flying fox is, that I should like him to see, ere he 

 quits Brittany, what a flying wolf can do, when he sets his neck 

 straight and goes for a cover in some far distant land." 



" Let's be up and after them," I said in response. " Our 

 horses are fresh, you know the country, and we may yet * nick in' 

 for a fine run and a glorious finale." 



In five minutes from that time we \vere up in our saddles 

 again, St. Prix, on Barbe-bleu, leading us by short cuts and with 

 rapid strides to the far end of the forest eastward. By this 

 manoeuvre leagues of cover had been avoided ; and so lucky and 

 judicious was the cast, that we had not reined up our horses for 

 half-a-minute before we heard the hounds running hard and 

 coming directly for us in full cry. 



"We are over the scent, or we shall head him to a dead 

 certainty," said the Louvetier, in an agony of despair. And 

 scarcely were the words uttered when the hounds, flinging over 

 the scent, came to a sudden check within a hundred yards of the 

 spot on which we stood. True enough, we had headed the wolf 

 back. The wily brute, hearing the clatter of our horses' hoofs, 

 had turned short, and instead of breaking, as he meant to have 

 done, sought again the darkest depths of that trackless forest. 

 Not a word was spoken as the pack, bursting like a shell around 

 us, felt eagerly for the scent, every hound doing his work as if 

 the recovery of the line depended on him individually ! Wider 

 and wider they swept over the ground, busy as bees on every 

 side, till a noble hound called Talleyrand, dropping his stern, 

 threw his tongue like a clap of thunder. Then, what a scurry it 

 was to catch him ; and what a grand peal burst on the ear as the 



